54 BOTANICAL GAZETTE. [Mareh, 
On Some Recent Notes and Descriptions of Eriogonex in the Pro- 
ceedings of the California Academy of Sciences. 
C.. Cc. PARRY. 
The present energetic and successful botanical collector of the 
California Academy of Sciences, Mrs. M. K. Curran, having lately 
undertaken the very different work of systematic description in 
the published Proceedings of the Academy, the views there pre- 
sented naturally call for some notice in the current pages of bo- 
tanical literature. 
Having lately given some attention to the study of Eriogone 
the writer was naturally much interested in seeing whatever new 
light might be thrown by recent discoveries on the difficult prob- 
lems of systematic classification, and having been kindly favored 
with authentic specimens and published notes from the above 
source, the following suggestions are respectfully offered. The 
old difficulty of strictly defining genera and species, that in the 
idea of a species in a short description requires a thorough 
knowledge of the subject and a methodical mind.” In the brief 
pages 1-4 of the Calif. Acad. Proc. for 1885-86 Mrs. Curran 
claims to have data, mainly derived from her own recent discov- 
eries, to invalidate some of the long established genera of Erio- 
gone, even at the risk of merging all into the single polymor- 
phous genus Eriogonum. To properly substantiate such a claim 
we would naturally look for very important discoveries, but, as 
__ far as the pages referred to show, only two are brought to light. 
The first of these is a very well marked Eriogonum, closely re- 
lated to the well-known E. angulosum Benth., showing in fact 
no essential difference either in involucral characters, or internal 
bracteoles, only indeed remarkable for the excessive wooliness 
encompassing the flowers, on which the very appropriate specific 
name, 4. gossipinum, is based. On the strength of this normal 
species, however, Mrs. Curran proceeds at once to demolish the 
Nattallian genus Nemacaulis, and hastily constructs a section of 
Eriogonum, “Braeteolata,” in which it is snugly ensconced, being 
